Taxes Instrument’s takeover of National Semi was a wonderful surprise and a great move for TI long-term. What took everyone by surprise was the premium paid, about 72% over the market price. Whether it was worth it or not, that’s something for the future to decide, but what mattered was that NSM was severely undervalued by this inefficient market. The tech market especially was so occupied by startup hypes, cool Internet sites, and fancy gadgets that it ignored a rock solid base technology that is fundamental to life as we know it. Luckily someone was watching! Great for TI and investors who were doing their homework 😉

Now what is next? Well, there are a couple of dogs that have been grooming themselves and were not being noticed:

EMC, MSFT, and GLW. I will post my research later on these, but if you have to pick one from the three, then I think GLW is the most severely undervalued. EMC and MSFT were just caught into a downdraft and have not recovered yet.

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Oracle (ORCL) and Research in Motion (RIMM) are reporting earnings today after the close. The EPS expectations are little high for Oracle. I think Oracle will be helped by Larry Ellison’s acquisition of MySQL so they may meet the expectations. It was one of Larry’s smart moves IMHO. On RIMM however, I am not sure. I think they are in a tough spot with Apple and the crowded mobile suppliers eating their cake. So I would not be surprised if they miss.

Al Sabawi

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Red Hat came out with their 4th quarter numbers today and they were eye popping!. Their “fourth-quarter net income rose to $33.5 million, or 17 cents a share, compared to $23.4 million, or 12 cents a share in the same period a year earlier. They said total revenue for the period ended Feb. 28 rose 25% to $244.8 million. On an adjusted basis, Red Hat said earnings for the quarter were 26 cents a share”. This was much better than the analyst consensus of $236 million on Thomson Reuters. EPS was $0.26, vs. expectations of $0.22 per share.

Although I am impressed with this result, I am not in the least surprised! Why? For a couple of reasons that I always believed in:

Computer Operating systems and the software tools that are built around them are the heart and soul of all of our technologies. Operating Systems are in every computerized piece of equipment you have ever used. They run the stock market exchanges all over the world, the web servers that servers you this page, and the new fancy car you are thinking about buying. Microsoft started this revolution and now Linux suppliers like Red Hat took it over and built a new open source business model that made it accessible to everyone who wants to innovate. When this business model started in the late 90’s, every business leader out there from Bill Gates to Louis Gerstner questioned the validity of building a company around code then giving it for free over the internet. These leaders may have been visionaries in their time, but certainly have not envisioned the power of open platforms in shaping the industry. They missed seeing that independent developers can organize and communicate with the help of the exploding internet. And that those developers can supply brilliant system designs to the business community that is hungry for efficiency. They missed that when businesses are building the most critical of systems don’t have to buy their hardware from IBM and their operating systems from Microsoft or some other proprietary supplier only to go back to hire these same companies to service and maintain these systems.

The other belief I have is that software remains the greatest business out there in this new technology driven world. The need for good developers will keep increasing and if established businesses don’t seek them to expand and improve; developers will cut their own path with new innovations to startups that will be the envy of all the heavy weight companies.

Red Hat is the new Microsoft to the software industry with a major modification to the pick up line: “You own the code running on your servers, not Red Hat, change it as you wish. We bet that you will come to us and hire us to set it all up and maintain it for you. However, you don’t have to”

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BBC: nuclear distraction Have people gotten so negative that they are ready to accept any calamity as ‘World Ending’ sign? We are all very sorry for what happened in Japan.but people .. This is far from Chernobyl which the world survived very quickly.

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I’ve followed this for few days now expecting a major event!! This is getting ugly!! The Saudi Stock Market dropped 8% at one point today on fears of riots and revolution in the Kingdom. Reports of some 30 Saudi tanks moving into Bahrain from KSA (see link below) was widely circulating today in the news. No official confirmation I know of .

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Myth : Alternative energy will eventually relieve us from the dependency on Oil. FALSE!!
Since we moved off the steam engine, oil became the major means to power all industries in this civilization we live in. We used coal too but we don’t want to go there. Most of these talks about wind, solar, ethanol, nuclear, etc are more hype than reality and cannot come close to the efficiency and convenience of oil power. With the exception of nuclear, none of them pack enough juice per cubic centimeter to quench our energy thirst. Unless we come up with a portable nuclear battery soon, Oil will remain king. So keep your seat belts on, the ride up the price curve will continue for a very long time.

For the US to survive economically, it really ought to abandon its political ambitions for being an industrial base and its race for manufacturing and productions of goods. The US’s future is to be a Capital Exchange center for the world where capitals are traded for business ideas and investors gather to shop for shares in promising ventures.

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Putting my money on Qaddafi getting ousted in 4 days. Starting midnight tonight US Estern Time. He will either be killed, step down, or fly out of the country. Any bets?? http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/world/africa/27nations.html